Asperger’s Syndrome and Understanding Challenging Behaviour

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£13.60

“Sensitivity does not necessarily make people overreact to things but maybe it makes them over experience things?” Alis Rowe. Many of the behaviours demonstrated by autistic people are commonly described as being “challenging.” The Girl with the Curly Hair explores what “challenging” really means and finds out that it commonly means being “difficult”, “naughty” or other negative descriptions.

“Sensitivity does not necessarily make people overreact to things but maybe it makes them over experience things?” Alis Rowe

Many of the behaviours demonstrated by autistic people are commonly described as being “challenging.” The Girl with the Curly Hair explores what “challenging” really means and finds out that it commonly means being “difficult”, “naughty” or other negative descriptions. In this book, she considers whether a more accurate description of “challenging” might be “atypical.” She feels that sometimes behaviours neurotypical people are not used to can be incorrectly perceived as challenging. She hopes this book will help neurotypical people better understand the autistic person’s thoughts that lead to their behaviour. Is that person then seen in a different, more positive light?

Thank you girl with the curly hair for writing such a wonderful book. I am a young woman with Aspergers and significant sensory processing difficulties, I do a lot of things that people think are me being “difficult” or “over sensitive”, or too anxious, etc or they just don’t understand why I feel or behave the way I do. I have very high anxiety and I compare myself to other non-autistic people and think, why can’t I be like them, they don’t behave like me and they don’t have anxiety over the sorts of things I do? But when I read this book, I felt happy because I knew I wasn’t alone and I felt like it’s ok to be who I am, and that I’m not strange or annoying or wrong, it’s just that I have such high anxiety over ‘every day’ things, and have differences to neurotypical people, which mean my behaviour can be different.

In this book, the girl with the curly hair identifies 5 common reasons for “challenging behaviour” – strong emotion and anxiety, social interaction, repetitive thinking, executive function and sensory differences, and gives examples and explanations in each. The visual diagrams are wonderful as well. Just like with all of Alis’ other books, I could relate to it so much (even my mum commented on how well it described me!), and I felt understood. Her book helped me accept myself more for being who I am. Thank you 💛